Break Me, Shake Me, Hate Me
by Kuroi Inanis
Summary: A suggestion of sorts as to why Kaoru Kozue acts the way she does; the secrets of a little girl can remain locked within her mind even when she becomes an adult...


Break Me, Shake Me, Hate Me

By Kuroi Inanis

            Disclaimer: I don't own Utena or any of the characters contained within this story. 

Warning: This story contains high levels of abuse and father-to-daughter rape, as well as short description and implications of abuse against a child. If you are disturbed by any of the previously-mentioned subjects, do not read this. Flames will be ignored. 

            _"Baby, where are you?" She heard his voice calling her from the top of the stairs, his tone one of gentle sweetness that was just one step too sugary to be sincere. The girl with the periwinkle hair hiding in the northern-most corner of the basement wasn't fooled, however; she knew what he wanted and what would occur if she didn't comply without a word. She was young though, and the punishments had only started recently; thusly, her mind still held pathetic, useless scraps of hope that told her today he wouldn't catch her, today he'd come to look and wouldn't hear her terrified whimpers from behind the water heater… today he wouldn't hurt her. His footsteps, hard and cruel, came slowly down the stairs and stopped at the bottom, his voice once again calling out to her and making the blanket of fear that covered her spread through the room and cut out the oxygen. _

_            "Come here, baby… come here to daddy like a good little girl…" the sweetness was gone now, disappeared like the air, and she gulped and pushed herself further into the corner, the back of her dress scratching against the concrete wall behind her and ripping the fabric. Still she did not raise her voice or stand to give her location away, squeezing her eyes shut tightly to block out the terror taking over her body. It was only after he spoke again, after the threat he gave, that she forced her tiny legs to move enough to make her stand, her shoes scraping against the floor and her hands pressed against the wall to support her. She stood and stared at her father, stared at him through her hair falling across her face and her chest heaving as the room suddenly filled with air again. They stood staring at each other for the longest moment, for what felt like forever, before she chose to spoke._

_            "Daddy…" she whispered, the single word filled with fear and a silent plea not to be brought harm. He crossed the room and grabbed her arm, hauling her away from the wall without a response. And Kaoru Kozue screamed. _

            It was the soft click-click-click of shoes that attracted the older man's attention that warm summer night. He glanced up from his newspaper to see a young woman walking quietly down the sidewalk, her hands jammed into the pockets of her jeans shorts and her tall, lanky figure covered in a simple black tank-top. Her short periwinkle hair seemed kept in a style that was meant to look almost messy, flailing out on both sides of her head like little wings. He waved to her as she glanced up and she smiled softly, looking forward once again. His eyes followed her until she disappeared behind the large blushes that fenced in the next house, turning back his paper after his mind told him she was the daughter of the man who lives four houses down. He never would have suspected that beneath her cool, calm interior she was terrified, that her body was shaking beneath the cover of dark and her mind was desperately trying to shut down into auto-mode before she arrived at her destination.

            //One foot before the other, one foot before the other…// her mind whispered to her, the voice shaking and seeming almost on the edge of tears. But she never cried, and had no intentions of doing so now or ever, if she could help it. //If you don't go, you know what will happen… you know who he'll target next…// Her mind rationalized, more to itself than to her; that was the excuse that always forced her feet to move, always forced her to keep walking. She passed the houses in a daze, mentally ticking off the addresses. 42… 44... 46… 48. 48 Okinawa Court. It was the same as it had always been; white and simple with a large window above the porch and two bedroom windows to the left. The basement light was on; she could see it shining through the thick curtains he kept over the one window that led to that underground Hell… to HER underground Hell. And Miki wondered why she refused to go into the basement at home. 

            //But Miki doesn't know, you stupid shit…// her mind screamed, angry with her now, //Miki doesn't FUCKING KNOW, and he never will!// She shuddered and almost turned back, almost reversed her steps and ran all the way back to the mansion herself and her brother shared. She saw herself rushing up the five steps to the porch and bursting through the door, hot tears rolling down her face. He would still be up at this hour, sitting at the table doing his homework. She would run to him, run to his side and tell him everything and show the scars to back up her stories. He would take her into his arms and tell her it was alright, that he would never let her be hurt again… and then her rational mind snapped in, a cruel laugh dancing through her head and making her temples throb.

            //You stupid little shit… that would never happen and you know it. He'd forsaken you, call Daddy and tell him about all the little lies that you just pulled out of your ass… and then where would you be? One step closet to another beating and even further from Miki's heart than you already are… so you best just keep walking, you little cunt… just keep putting one foot before the other…// She complied as she always did, and glanced down at her watch as she made the walk up to the house with a clean, composed stride. She wasn't late… right on time, actually, which would please him. Her hand raised, the hand connected to the arm that bore her bracelet that perfectly matched Miki's. Mother had given them to the twins for their birthday, and each had their respective name carved into the smooth, pure gold. 

            //Pure… a word that should never be associated with me… a word too good for me…// she thought to herself as her hand formed a fist and came down on the door once, twice, three times. She dropped the limb back to her side and her mind started to go numb as the door opened, her father's form standing in the doorway. He smiled at her and she gave the usual smile back, falling perfectly into the role of the good daughter. Then that hand reached out, that big hand that she so feared, and grabbed her skinny arm, his calculating eyes glancing around to make sure everything was clear before he hauled her into the house and slammed the door behind them, shutting out the world. And Kaoru Kozue held her silence. 

            _That was the first day he did things other than just hitting… that was the first day he had touched her, had made her to touch him. Momma and Miki came home early from Miki's lesson and Daddy was forced to stop, readjusting her dress and kissing her cheek before telling her that if she said anything, he'd kill her and make the pain last. She ran upstairs the moment he released her and ignored Miki calling to her, fleeing up one more level of the house to their bedroom. He followed her after hanging up his jacket and removing his shoes, finding her lying face-down on her bed, her tiny shoulders shaking in sobs and her hands balled into fists that gripped the sheets._

_            "Kozue?" he whispered, moving to sit up on her bed by her side, stroking down her hair gently. "What's wrong, Kozue-chan?" His voice was confused but soothing, trying to be the stronger of the two children. She sniffled and looked up at him for a moment before she pushed him away, her heart breaking as he fell off the bed and stared up at her with hurt on his features. _

_            "Leave me alone!" she screamed, not quite able to meet his eyes. "Leave me alone, I hate you! I hate you Miki!" Her words hurt her heart just as much as they did his, and as he ran off crying she collapsed back into a fit of sobs, rocking back and forth on her bed. It had been for the best, it had… if she didn't push him away…if she didn't make him hate her…_

_            **"I'll hurt him too, Kozue…"**her father's earlier words echoed in her ears, the same ones that had drawn her out of the corner and back into his hate, **"if you don't come out, I'll do the same to him… do as I say or he'll get it too… and he'll get it worse than you do…" **At this time in their lives, the twins had been ten years old. _

            Once inside the house he had slammed her body against a wall, kissing her roughly and paying no mind to the fact that she didn't kiss back. He stripped her clothing from her body quickly, complimenting her on her choice of dress – it had been pathetically easy to remove what little dignity she had from her physical self tonight (last week it had been hard, and she had copped a bad beating for her mistake). 

            "Good girl…" he whispered, stroking a hand up her face as he grabbed her and shoved her towards the stairs, then took her arm and hauled her down them like a child carries along a rag doll; with the socket threatening to pop out from the force and the grip promising bruises the next day. She was dragged to the dingy bed lying in the corner and shoved against the wall next to it, her wrists and ankles chained by the shackles hanging from the ceiling and attached to the floor. Her eyes stared straight ahead and focused on a single spot of dried blood, a single spot out of the thousands that littered the walls and the floor. Behind her she could hear him removing his clothing, taking his belt from his pants first so he could beat her with it in just a moment. There used to be a time when he would gag her as well, when he would have to drag her down the stairs screaming, when he would have to smack her across the head until her vision went a hazy red before she would hold still enough to be secured and gagged; now he only restrained her to keep her exhausted body from collapsing from the floor when her legs could no longer support her. She hadn't screamed or made a fuss in several years, ever since he had started up the stairs when she was twelve to get Miki, to bring him down and show him the same treatment he showed her. That had been at the old house, the one Miki and her lived in now; this house had only been his since the divorce, when the twins were thirteen. After that she had held her tongue, hadn't screamed or made a single noise of protest. 

            "You've been good tonight, Kozue… you've been a good girl, so I'm only going to give you ten lashings tonight, alright? It's my gift to you…" he told her, running a hand down her back. A moment later the belt came and her head tipped upward, her mind passing into the final stages of numbness and shutting down. She wouldn't remember any of this when she left, as she never did. Instead her mind turned to the days of abuse she did remember, the days where she still screamed and fought and prayed for some release out of this Hell. After that fated day when she was twelve, her mind refused to allow her to remember the beatings; after the screaming stopped, her memories did too.

            _Miki and Mamma had gone away for the weekend to visit grandma and grandpa… Kozue had begged and begged to go, but she was sick with the flu and Miki had a recital the next week, which left the younger twin and her father alone in the house for Friday night, all of Saturday, and most of Sunday. On Friday she had received a beating so violent that it had almost landed her in the hospital, leaving her in a state of immobility. Then he had simply thrown her in the closet, locking the door and leaving her there to scream and cry and beg until her voice went, until she finally fell asleep. He had let her out on Sunday afternoon and had cleaned her up and dressed her wounds, giving her the story she was to tell her mother and brother – she had fallen down the stairs and had sustained all her injuries during the tumble. When they had come home she had played the good little girl and given her excuse, allowing her mother to pamper her and take care of her without another word. Miki had asked her later that night if she was telling the truth or if something else was happening, but she had simply ignored him until he finally dropped it and went to sleep. That was one of the few nights she had cried herself to sleep._

_            She had thought the beatings were over when Mamma and Daddy moved out, when they left the twins alone in that large house on the outskirts of their school; they were on government property now and in the care of the school's headmaster, Ohtori Akio. She thought it was over and maybe she could heal her life and move on…and for almost a year, that was indeed so the case. In that time Miki and herself had slowly started to repair the breach created years previous; that had been the point in her life where Miki was participating in the student council duels and both Himemiya and Utena eventually ended up disappearing. Then, a few months after the duels were over and things returned to what __Ohtori__Academy__ considered 'normalcy', the phone had rang. It had been father, and he had wanted Kozue to come over to her father's new house later that night; if she refused or told anyone what was going on, he wouldn't hesitate to make Kozue an only child. _

            She had been making these visits every week since then, and the breach had become even worse than it already was. It was over now, minutes or perhaps hours later; he had been merciful tonight, undoing her restraints (she was on the bed now, but had no clue as to how she had come to this location or when during the 'session') and handing her her clothes without a word. She, in turn, had put them on without a word and had brushed her hair with the small pink brush he kept in the basement just for her. As she returned her hair to its previous state he sat behind her, applying the proper ointments to her wounds and mending her like the broken toy she was. Once done he led her upstairs and disappeared into his room, returning a moment later with two small gifts. He smiled and handed them to her as she opened the front door and went to leave, her mind starting to slowly reengage itself. 

            "Happy birthday baby… make sure to tell Miki the same…" he told her, kissing her cheek before he gently sent her away from the house, returning her wave before the door shut and the lights when off. Kozue stood in long silence for several minutes, staring at the door before she slowly turned, and headed for home.

            It was late when she arrived home, but she knew Miki would be up; he always sat up worrying over her when she went out, even if he would never admit it. She sat the presents on the kitchen table, moving to the downstairs bathroom where her spare pair of clothing sat untouched in the linen closet, hidden securely under a large stack of towels. She changed her clothing and washed the blood out of the ones she had been wearing, scrubbing at them in the sink until the red liquid released its hold on the fabric and went tumbling down the drain with the water it now soiled, securing her dirty little secret and taking with it all evidence. From there she chucked them into the laundry room and left them for the next day when she would wash them with her other clothes, heading slowly up the stairs so as not to aggravate her wounds further. She entered the bedroom to find Miki sitting up with a book in his hands. She ignored the look of infuriation he gave her as she crossed the room and retrieved her nightgown, making another clothing switch in the bathroom before dumping her "dirty" clothes into the hamper and crawling into bed.

            "Dad says Happy Birthday, Miki…" she whispered, curling up under the covers with her back to him, "there's a gift downstairs on the table for you…" She heard him snort and the click of the light as he turned it off, the bed sheets rustling under him as he shifted to get more comfortable. 

            "More than I'll ever get from you…" he muttered, his voice laced with hatred, "so how long did you stay over there before you went out and played campus whore?" She didn't answer his question, and after several minutes he gave up on getting an answer out of her. She heard his breathing finally even out as he slipped into a deep sleep and her eyes shifted to the clock by her bed, taking in the time moments before her vision was obscured by tears she no longer wished to hide; he wouldn't see them anyway, so there was no point in restraint. 

            "12:01 am… Happy Birthday, Miki…" she whispered, closing her own eyes and soon sliding off into her own world of dreams, where for the moment her father never hit her and her brother still loved her with the same intensity he had before that fateful night where she refused to play the piano without him and where thereafter she had refused to play under any circumstances. It was the 28th of May, and Kaoru Kozue had been living with her father's abuse for ten full years. 

FIN (??) 

Notes: If you want more, review it and tell me so. I have an idea for a sequel, but I want to see if readers feel that 1) it needs a sequel, and 2) if it feels worthy of spending time writing a sequel. Thanks guys!! ^^

SMC, March 15 2004


End file.
